Apocalyptic thought has a tradition that dates to the Persian prophet Zoroaster in the 14th century BC. Recently, anxiety has grown over the prediction of the end of the world in the Mayan calendar.
It's true that the Mayan odometer will hit zeros on 21 December 2012 , as it reaches the end of a 394-year cycle called a baktun. But this baktun is part of a larger 8,000-year cycle called a pictun, and there's no evidence that anything astronomically untoward will happen as the current baktun slides into the next. However, that hasn't stopped the feverish speculating that sells books and cinema tickets.
What kind of catastrophe would it take to end the world? Astronomical intruders provide a potentially serious threat. Asteroid impacts can be caused by stray rubble from the Asteroid Belt and the rocky snowballs that travel in highly elliptical orbits in the comet cloud. There are many fewer large bits of debris than small bits, so the interval between large impacts is much longer than the interval between small impacts.
That's good news. Every century or so, a 10-meter meteor slams into the Earth with the force of a small nuclear device . Tunguska was the site of the last , in 1908, and it was pure luck that that meteor landed in the uninhabited wilderness of Siberia. Every few thousand years, Earth can pass through unusually thick parts of the debris trail of comets, turning the familiar light show of a meteor shower into a deadly firestorm. Roughly every 100,000 years, a projectile hundreds of meters across unleashes power equal to the world's nuclear arsenals. The result is devastation over an area the size of England, global tidal waves (if the impact is in the ocean), and enough dust flung into the atmosphere to dim the Sun and kill off vegetation. That could ruin your day.
Then there's the "Big One". About every 100 million years, a rock the size of a small asteroid slams into the Earth, causing global earthquakes , kilometre-high tsunami waves , and immediately killing all large land animals. Creatures in the sea soon follow, as trillions of tons of vaporised rock cause drastic cooling and the destruction of the food chain based on photosynthesis. There's good evidence that this happened 65 million years ago and our tiny mammal ancestors were the beneficiaries as the giant lizards were extinguished.
A growing number of scientists are going where politicians fear to tread by calling for a wider public debate on the sensitive issue of the global human population, which is set to rise from the present 6.8 billion to perhaps 9 billion by 2050.
Lord Rees, the president of the Royal Society, brought the subject up in his excellent Reith Lectures; Sir David Attenborough has become a champion of those who believe population has been relegated as an environmental issue; and more recently Professor Aubrey Manning, presenter of the BBC's Earth Story, has stated that the sheer number of humans on the planet is the greatest menace the world faces. [ INDEPENDENT UK ]
The risk of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists is the gravest threat facing the United States, a Pentagon official has said.
Asked about the existential threats against Washington, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy said there were many, but warned that "the thing that keeps me awake at night is a nexus between terrorism and massive destruction."
She told a Washington symposium on US security that the United States needs to better prepare for "the possibility that a terrorist organization could either acquire a ready-made weapon or fabricate something improvised that would have a catastrophic effect for us." [ YAHOO NEWS ]
The astonishing news that the oil leak at the bottom of the sea may be twice as big as previously thought could have major repercussions for both the environment and BP’s financial health, killing more marine life and dramatically increasing the amount the company must pay in fines and damages.
Scientists now say the blown-out well could have been spewing as much as 2 million gallons of crude before a cut-and-cap maneuver started capturing some of the flow, meaning more than 100 million gallons may have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico since the start of the disaster in April. That is more than nine times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, previously the worst oil spill in US history.
A very strong earthquake of 7.7 magnitude struck near India's Nicobar Islands and northwest of the tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
A regional tsunami watch was in effect for all areas of the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said on its website. The epicenter of the quake was 107 miles (171 km) west of Misha on the Nicobar Islands at a depth of 20.5 miles (33 km), USGS said. [ ALERT NET ]
The flash floods that swept through Arkansas today, taking the lives of at least 20 people and leaving others missing, are a reminder of a little-known fact: Flash floods are the No. 1 cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, according to the National Weather Service.
Two key factors that lead to flash flooding are the intensity of the rainfall and its duration. For this reason, most flash flooding is caused by slow-moving thunderstorms, thunderstorms that move repeatedly over the same area, or heavy rains from hurricanes and tropical storms, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Intense rainfall led to the Arkansas flash flooding, causing the Caddo and Little Missouri rivers to rise quickly overnight, sometimes faster than 8 feet (2.4 meters) per hour, according to news reports.[ LIVE SCIENCE ]
The worst locust plague in more than two decades is threatening to strike Australia, the world’s fourth-largest wheat exporter, after rainfall boosted egg-laying by the insects in major crop growing regions.
“There are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crops and pastures that are potentially at risk,” Chris Adriaansen, director at the Canberra-based Australian Plague Locust Commission said in an interview by phone. “Tens of millions of dollars” will be spent during the southern hemisphere spring to reduce the affects of the infestation, he said.
The forecast plague could cost Victoria’s agriculture sector A$2 billion ($1.7 billion) if left untreated, the state government said today. Widespread egg-laying across south- eastern Australia has set the scene for the biggest hatching for at least 25 years, according to the commission, which describes locusts as the nation’s most serious pest species. [ BLOOMBERG ]
Flash floods swamped valley campgrounds along a pair of southwestern Arkansas rivers early Friday, killing 16 and leaving anguished families pleading with emergency workers for help in finding dozens of missing people.
More than 40 people were unaccounted for after the Caddo and Little Missouri rivers rose quickly overnight — at times faster than 8 feet per hour, said Gary Fox, a retired emergency medical technician who was coordinating with families to determine who had died and who had yet to be found.
"This is not a one- or two-day thing," Fox said outside a command post near Langley next to the Little Missouri. "This is going to be a week or two- or three-week recovery."
The BP oil spill is still dominating headlines, 50 days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded. But how much oil leaks into the Gulf on any other day of the year? Satillite images and photographs from the region indicate that there may be two other offshore drilling units leaking oil into the ocean.
BP's live video stream of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico is simultaneously tragic and hypnotic. With each passing second, more gallons of crude oil and natural gas escape into the ocean.
Until Thursday, BP and NOAA had stood by their early estimate -- produced April 29, a week after the Deepwater Horizon rig sank -- that about 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) were leaking per day from the damaged well, although they had acknowledged that the estimate was not precise.
And after the world first witnessed the 30-second video clip that BP released on May 12, scientists began to wonder more loudly how the estimate could be that low.
Now, thanks in part to congressional pressure, we have a way to watch the environmental crisis unfold in real time via a live video feed. We modified our original Gulf Leak Meter because the video takes our sliding scale out of the abstract and into reality.
Stories of hurricane winds and rain lashing the coasts of Florida, Louisiana and other southeastern states pop up in the news constantly during the summer, but warnings of Pacific storms such as Jimena are few and far between.In fact, only one hurricane is thought to have ever struck California, and that was clear back in 1858. Could it happen again? Not impossible, but also extremely unlikely in any given year.
The disparity is a result of the oceanic and atmospheric conditions at play in both basins, which send hurricanes in the Atlantic toward land and hurricanes in the Pacific away from it, generally sparing West Coasters from the rages of these storms.
The hurricanes that swirl over both oceans form through the same mechanism, whereby warm ocean waters fuel the rotating storms. (Typhoons are also the same phenomenon; the name is simply the designation used in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans.)
Clouds of oil have been found drifting underwater in the Gulf of Mexico as far as 142 miles from the wrecked Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, government officials said Tuesday.
At a briefing, Jane Lubchenko, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said that tests conducted at three sites by a University of South Florida research vessel confirmed oil as far as 3,300 feet below the surface.
The oil was found 42 miles northeast of the well site and also 142 miles to the southeast. Lubchenko said the tests "indicate there is definitely oil sub surface. It's in very low concentrations" of 0.5 parts per million.
There have been reports of such underwater "plumes" previously, but BP had questioned whether oil was actually forming below water. [ MSNBC ]
The ocean covers 70 percent of the Earth's surface, but on this World Oceans Day (June 8, 2010) scientists say they still know shockingly little about the mysterious deep blue sea.
With 95 percent of the ocean unmapped, more is known about the moon's surface than the ocean depths, said aquatic filmmaker Fabien Cousteau, grandson of ocean diving pioneer Jacque Cousteau. In fact,12 men have stepped foot on the moon, but only two have been to the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean at roughly 7 miles (11 kilometers) deep. [ LIVE SCIENCE ]
The wildlife apocalypse along the Gulf Coast that everyone has feared for weeks is fast becoming a terrible reality.
Pelicans struggled to free themselves from oil thick as tar that gathers in hip-deep pools, while others stretch out useless wings, feathers dripping with crude. Dead birds and dolphins have washed up onshore, coated in the sludge. Seashells that once glinted pearly white under the hot June sun are stained crimson. Scenes like this played out along miles of shoreline Saturday, nearly seven weeks after a BP rig exploded and the wellhead a mile below the surface began belching millions of gallon of oil.
"These waters are my backyard, my life," said boat captain Dave Marino, a firefighter and fishing guide from Myrtle Grove. "I don't want to say heartbreaking, because that's been said. It's a nightmare. It looks like it's going to be wave after wave of it and nobody can stop it."
Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th. Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, explains what it's all about:
"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."
The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts." It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.
European criticism of the World Health Organization's handling of the H1N1 pandemic intensified Friday with the release of two reports that accused the agency of exaggerating the threat posed by the virus and failing to disclose possible influence by the pharmaceutical industry on its recommendations for how countries should respond.
The WHO's response caused widespread, unnecessary fear and prompted countries around the world to waste millions of dollars, according to one report. At the same time, the Geneva-based arm of the United Nations relied on advice from experts with ties to drug makers in developing the guidelines it used to encourage countries to stockpile millions of doses of antiviral medications, according to the second report.[ WASHINGTON POST ]
Earlier this week, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) responded to the continuing Gulf oil leak by proposing new legislative action that would raise the liability BP could face for the disaster. Sen. Schumer’s action is merely the latest move in Washington’s month-long reaction to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, and if history is any guide, it won’t be the last.
Throughout the last century, environmental and industrial catastrophes have often provoked an outraged citizenry to demand action from their elected officials, resulting in new regulations aimed at preventing future catastrophes. Experts point out, however, that many of those regulations failed to stop subsequent calamities, leading some to question whether the responses to the Gulf oil leak will have a lasting effect.
If the conspiracy theorists are on to something, they could be plotting the invasion of Iran, planning the funeral of the Euro or scheming to wipe out French poodles in pink sweaters at this very minute.
Or perhaps the world's financial and political leaders are simply schmoozing about their golf game as they enjoy a "chocolate massage" followed by the "honey body scrub" and the "spectacular oxygen Echo2 facial" at the Dolce Hotel's spa in Sitges.
It is also possible that the world's executives, media moguls, and financial gurus came to the elegant seaside town near Barcelona to study the booming gay tourist market there (although they missed the wild Carnival celebration by a few months) and to sneak a preview of next year's international horror film festival.
But ordinary citizens can only guess at the goings-on at the annual meeting of the secretive Bilderberg Group, a media-barred pow-wow of the global elite that in the past has reportedly attracted former US President Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and David Cameron, and US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner. Even the late Enoch Powell once attended. [ INDEPENDENT ]
AP Photographer Charlie Riedel just filed the following images of seabirds caught in the oil slick on a beach on Louisiana's East Grand Terre Island. As BP engineers continue their efforts to cap the underwater flow of oil, landfall is becoming more frequent, and the effects more evident. (8 photos total )
